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'''Spacetime''' is the 4-dimensional [[vector space]] or [[manifold]]<ref>Often treated as a vector space when working examples, but that isn't really correct because it has no origin.  The more sophisticated term "manifold" is correct.</ref> that simultaneously embodies the concepts of time and 3-dimensional space.  Whether one can ascribe a separate existence to spacetime itself, depends on one's physical intuition.  But that doesn't matter&mdash;"separate existence" or not, physicists working in the field understand spacetime as a useful concept.
 
'''Spacetime''' is the 4-dimensional [[vector space]] or [[manifold]]<ref>Often treated as a vector space when working examples, but that isn't really correct because it has no origin.  The more sophisticated term "manifold" is correct.</ref> that simultaneously embodies the concepts of time and 3-dimensional space.  Whether one can ascribe a separate existence to spacetime itself, depends on one's physical intuition.  But that doesn't matter&mdash;"separate existence" or not, physicists working in the field understand spacetime as a useful concept.
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{{cquote|Space tells matter how to move; matter tells space how to curve - John Archibald Wheeler, in Misner, Thorne and Wheeler ''Gravitation'' (1973) p.5, and ''Geons, Black Holes, and Quantum Foam'' (2000), p. 235.<ref>https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Archibald_Wheeler</ref>}}
    
Under Newtonian/Galilean physics or Newtonian/Galilean relativity at the high-school and general undergraduate level, one typically thinks of time, and the 3 dimensions of space, completely separately.  One can solve many problems of physics with this formulation.
 
Under Newtonian/Galilean physics or Newtonian/Galilean relativity at the high-school and general undergraduate level, one typically thinks of time, and the 3 dimensions of space, completely separately.  One can solve many problems of physics with this formulation.
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